1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to liquid cartridge urging units for a mounting portion to which a liquid cartridge is configured to be mounted by being moved in a first direction, and, more specifically, relates to liquid cartridge urging units configured to urge the liquid cartridge in a second direction opposite to the first direction.
2. Description of Related Art
As a printing apparatus, a known ink-jet printing apparatus is configured to form images on printing media such as a sheet of paper by ejecting ink droplets from a printhead. The ink-jet printing apparatus has an ink cartridge having ink stored therein, and is configured to eject ink supplied from the ink cartridge as ink droplets from the printhead. One type of the ink cartridge is configured to be mounted on a carriage, which reciprocates along a printing surface of the printing medium together with the printhead, and configured to supply ink directly to the printhead. Another type of the ink cartridge is configured to be mounted to a holder provided in a printing apparatus to supply ink via a tube to the printhead. The ink cartridge of either type is configured to be removed from the printing apparatus when the remaining amount of ink stored therein becomes small and be replaced with a new ink cartridge having ink filled therein.
A person to replace the ink cartridge is not limited to a person having a specific skill, but may be an end user, who actually uses the printing apparatus. Therefore, the printing apparatus may need to have a configuration which allows a user to replace the ink cartridge easily and reliably. Accordingly, a known liquid container holder is configured such that a liquid container, e.g., an ink cartridge, is mounted to and fixed in the liquid container holder by being inserted and pressed into the liquid container holder in an insertion direction. Moreover, when the liquid container is removed from the liquid container holder, the liquid container is released from the fixed state by pressing the liquid container mounted in the liquid container holder in the insertion direction, and the liquid container is pushed out in a removal direction by a spring-biased slider member. This liquid container has a flat rectangular parallelepiped shape, and the liquid container holder has a plurality of mounting portions for accommodating a plurality of liquid containers, respectively, such that the plurality of liquid containers are aligned in a direction perpendicular to the insertion direction. The plurality of mounting portions are structurally independent of each other, corresponding to the respective liquid containers.
Incidentally, liquid cartridges and mounting portions may need to be downsized to meet the trend of the downsizing of printing apparatus. However, because the mounting portions described above are structurally independently of each other, components for the mounting portions are also independently provided for respective mounting portions. Therefore, the number of components is increased, which hinders downsizing of the mounting portions.